Em­bat­tled Rams charge home with sil­ver medal

ST MARYS PUTS UP GOOD FIGHT AT MASTERS

THE base­ball play­ers with 524 years of ex­pe­ri­ence be­tween them are back from the Aus­tralian Masters Games, bring­ing with them a cov­eted sil­ver medal.

The St Marys Rams side bat­tled six other teams from across the coun­try – play­ing eight games in as many days in Ade­laide last week.

The 13-player side started off a bit shaky with a few losses early on, how­ever were able to fight back and bat­tle it out for gold. Head­ing into the grand fi­nal, the play­ers were con­fi­dent and led for the ma­jor­ity of the game, just los­ing to the home side the Ade­laide Stingers in the last 10 min­utes.

Player Matthew Bar­low said the team had fought hard and just missed out on the gold medal.

“We had two hands on the gold and ended up los­ing in the last in­nings,” he said.

“The boys played out of their skins un­til in­juries started to take hold and the other team be­gan hit­ting well.”

Team­mate Pe­ter Aquilina ad­mit­ted the en­tire week was tough.

“The luck of the draw had us play­ing some of the top teams mul­ti­ple times – one team even had an ex-Aus­tralian Base­ball League player,” he said.

The com­pet­i­tive na­ture of the games saw many of the play­ers suf­fer in­juries.

Bar­low suf­fered the wost with a torn ACL and will re­quire surgery.

Bat­tered and bruised but still op­ti­mistic, the team re­turned to St Marys with their heads held high and hoped to com­pete in the masters games again. The play­ers’ spir­its weren’t too dam­aged hav­ing al­ready played two games since re­turn­ing to Syd­ney last week in their reg­u­lar com­pe­ti­tion.

Aquilina said the team hoped to com­pete in the World Masters Games in 2017.

“The worlds are in Auck­land, New Zealand in 2017 so we will look to that,” he said.

Bar­low said: “There will be teams com­pet­ing from all over the world in New Zealand from the Ja­panese to Amer­i­cans and Cana­di­ans – it will be a higher grade of game.”

Pic­ture: MATT SUL­LI­VAN

Some of the St Marys Rams mem­bers Matthew Bar­low, Pe­ter Aquilina, Mark Sut­ton and Scott Croucher with their sil­ver medals.